Mother sues East Detroit schools over son's death in swimming pool

The mother of the East Detroit High School student who drowned last year in the school’s swimming pool filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging gross negligence by school officials involved with the incident.

LaKisha Swift filed the suit in Macomb County Circuit Court two days after a substitute teacher was criminally charged with involuntary manslaughter for the drowning of KeAir Swift.

The suit accuses school officials of recklessness by failing to verify the teacher’s credentials, employing a “grossly incompetent” teacher to act as the pool lifeguard, not training the teacher appropriately, and failing to equip the pool area with appropriate rescue equipment, among other allegations.

“The list goes on and on -- it’s fairly long,” said attorney James Craig of Geoffrey Fieger’s Southfield-based law firm.

KeAir Swift, 14, of Detroit, was attending a remedial swimming class Nov. 8, 2013 at the Eastpointe school when he became distressed and sank to the bottom of the pool, according to police.

Sails, the substitute teacher who was supposed to be supervising the class, was talking to other students in the bleachers instead of being near the pool, police and prosecutors have said.

He lacked the appropriate certification to be teaching a swimming class, initially “blew off” students who alerted him to Swift’s situation, the lawsuit states.

Instead of heading to the pool, Sails instead went to the locker room to change out of his jumpsuit and into a bathing suit police allege. By the time he arrived at the pool, the youngster had been pulled out by a fully-clothed acting principal.

The suit states Swift was unresponsive when he was pulled out of the water. He was rushed to St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit and died four days later after his family had him removed from a life support system. According to the suit, he suffered severe brain damage from a lack of oxygen while being submerged.

“KeAir’s mother has been extremely distraught over this,” Craig said. “She can barely even speak to me as we worked on this. It’s been a tremendous heartbreak for her, losing her son.”

The lawsuit seeks more than $25,000 in damages and funeral expenses. It was assigned to Judge Diane Druzinski.

On Tuesday, Sails was arraigned in 38th District Court in Eastpointe on the involuntary manslaughter charge, a 15-year felony. Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said Sails misrepresented his credentials to school officials, who failed to check his background.

In a statement issued by Superintendent Joanne Lelekatch after Tuesday’s arraignment, the school district said Sails is an employee of an outside contractor called Professional Educational Services Group (PESG), which had provided substitute teachers to the district for the past several years.